Yet again, Texas has become home to internment camps...

1of 6U.S. Border Patrol agents detain a group of Central American asylum seekers near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12, 2018 in McAllen, Texas. The group of women and children had rafted across the Rio Grande from Mexico and were detained before being sent to a processing center for possible separation. Customs and Border Protection is executing the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy toward undocumented immigrants. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also said that domestic and gang violence in immigrants’ country of origin would no longer qualify them for political asylum status.Photo: John Moore, Staff / Getty Images

2of 6U.S. Border Patrol agents detain a group of Central American asylum seekers near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12, 2018 in McAllen, Texas. The group of women and children had rafted across the Rio Grande from Mexico and were detained before being sent to a processing center for possible separation. Customs and Border Protection is executing the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy toward undocumented immigrants. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also said that domestic and gang violence in immigrants’ country of origin would no longer qualify them for political asylum status.Photo: John Moore, Staff / Getty Images

3of 6U.S. Border Patrol agents ask a group of Central American asylum seekers to remove hair bands and weddding rings before taking them into custody on June 12, 2018 near McAllen, Texas. The immigrant families were then sent to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing center for possible separation. U.S. border authorities are executing the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy towards undocumented immigrants. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also said that domestic and gang violence in immigrants’ country of origin would no longer qualify them for political asylum status.Photo: John Moore, Staff / Getty Images

4of 6A boy and father from Honduras are taken into custody by U.S. Border Patrol agents near the U.S.-Mexico Border on June 12, 2018 near Mission, Texas. The asylum seekers were then sent to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing center for possible separation. U.S. border authorities are executing the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy toward undocumented immigrants. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also said that domestic and gang violence in immigrants’ country of origin would no longer qualify them for political asylum status.Photo: John Moore, Staff / Getty Images

5of 6A Mission Police Dept. officer (L), and a U.S. Border Patrol agent watch over a group of Central American asylum seekers before taking them into custody on June 12, 2018 near McAllen, Texas. Local police officers often coordinate with Border Patrol agents in the apprehension of undocumented immigrants near the border. The immigrant families were then sent to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing center for possible separation. U.S. border authorities are executing the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy toward undocumented immigrants. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also said that domestic and gang violence in immigrants’ country of origin would no longer qualify them for political asylum status.Photo: John Moore, Staff / Getty Images

6of 6Central American asylum seekers wait as U.S. Border Patrol agents take them into custody on June 12, 2018 near McAllen, Texas. The families were then sent to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing center for possible separation. U.S. border authorities are executing the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy toward undocumented immigrants. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also said that domestic and gang violence in immigrants’ country of origin would no longer qualify them for political asylum status.Photo: John Moore, Staff / Getty Images

All a dad wants on Father’s Day is to spend time with his kids.

One can assume that’s what Marco Antonio Muñoz wanted, too, last month when he and his family crossed the Rio Grande to apply for asylum from Honduras, one of the most violent countries in the world.

But soon after, Customs and Border Protection separated him from his wife and 3-year-old son.

Thousands of men, women and children from Central America are trekking across a continent, searching for safe harbor after fleeing danger and civil strife not usually seen outside war zones. They’re asking for asylum in places like Costa Rica, Mexico and, yes, Texas.

The United States has decided to meet their pleas with a policy of conscious cruelty that, according to Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, is intended to discourage more refugees: Split up the families. Detain them. Let them know they’re not welcome.

Maybe they should have gone with Crystal City, a border town with some experience in this area.

During World War II, thousands of Japanese, Italian and German families were forced from their homes across the United States and were interred at the Crystal City Alien Enemy Detention Facility. At the time, the entire nation was caught up in a frenzy of fear, convinced that their neighbors posed a threat to the war effort. We now know those fears were unfounded — but it should have been obvious at the time, too. In 1983, a Congressional commission found that internment was motivated by “racial prejudice, war hysteria and failure of political leadership,” and not by military considerations. The 467-page report also stated that government officials “ignored” recommendations by the FBI and naval intelligence that careful surveillance of suspicious targets would be enough to check espionage, sabotage or fifth column activity.

Today we face a similar conflux of prejudice, hysteria and failure of political leadership driving our response to the humanitarian crisis in Central America. Immigration experts and pediatricians alike are pleading with the federal government to stop taking children from their parents and end a policy of mass detention that began under the Obama administration, and instead embrace policies that we know work.

If we don’t make these changes, however, the history is clear about what will happen. Families will suffer. America’s international reputation will weaken. Our children will read about this ignoble moment and wonder why we responded with panic and fear rather than calm and compassion.

Maybe, like those interned at Crystal City, a generation of kids will return decades from now to the abandoned Walmart where they were detained to remember the injustice they endured in a nation they turned to for help.